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Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs A Low Culture Manifesto Chuck Klosterman 9780743236010 Books

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Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs A Low Culture Manifesto Chuck Klosterman 9780743236010 Books

Chuck Klosterman's an interesting essayist in that he actually seems to have engaged with the pop culture entities he writes about. This is a major accomplishment. Much of what I've read about pop culture is written by people who get basic facts wrong, and who don't even seem to like the pop culture they're getting paid to write about and don't pay close enough attention to the details. (Klosterman himself parodies this in a late chapter in which he attends an academic conference on rock music criticism).

Like most collections of essays, this book is pretty uneven. That's to be expected. Klosterman is at his best (and funniest) when writing about sports and music, the two topics he knows the most about and has the most professional experience with. The essay on a Guns N' Roses tribute band was sympathetic and spot-on, for example, and dovetails with many of my own experiences having seen and interacted with many tribute bands in the New York City. area. And speaking of New York, Billy Joel should really send Klosterman at least one fruit basket a year for the thoughtful analysis of "The Nylon Curtain" that appears early in this book because - unlike most Rolling Stone critics - Klosterman not only has listened to the album multiple times but gets what Billy Joel was trying to do better than anyone else. If you're a Billy Joel fan, you'll want to buy this book for that alone.

As for the worst moments? I think I have read enough anecdotes about Klosterman's undergraduate days in this book to last me a lifetime. He also does not really seem to understand science-fiction, which is not a serious flaw except that an entire chapter is devoted to a defense of the "Vanilla Sky" film that keeps veering into fairly superficial Philosophy for Dummies. There are no deep insights here, because this isn't really a manifesto.

Given how many of the topics that Klosterman obsesses over in these essays seem like artifacts from an alternate universe from a more modern perspective ("Vanilla Sky," "Saved by the Bell", some low-budget Rapture films, Pamela Anderson's sex tape, the Dixie Chicks), the book itself accidentally makes a brilliant point. The world that Klosterman wrote about at the turn of the 21st century is as different from 2017 as 1955 was to 1975. Ironically, some of what Klosterman includes here - namely internet pornography and reality television - seem just as topical today. And, if you look close enough, there is an undercurrent of the cultural divide between what we now call Red States and Blue States presented in a mostly nonconfrontational way.

If you're familiar with the pop culture that Klosterman uses as touchstones, and you're willing to read a book of essays which you may not always agree with, you're going to enjoy sections of this book. If you hate pop culture, you're not going to get anything out of this.


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Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs A Low Culture Manifesto Chuck Klosterman 9780743236010 Books Reviews

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is a collection of essays on popular culture and its connections to psychology, sociology, and other inner workings of society. This book is mainly geared toward Generation X'ers, and I believe that older people may appreciate it, but significantly younger people (born after, say, 1990) may not, since the references may be too obscure.

The book covers a variety of topics, from serial killers to the Lakers/Celtics rivalry to breakfast cereal to Billy Joel to "The Real World," and makes an attempt at finding deeper meaning in all of these things. The collection starts out strong with a rant on why John Cusack has ruined the love lives of everyone (men and women) born between 1965 and 1978. This is funny and promising to anyone who feels similarly.

The biggest downside of this collection is that Klosterman's writing and his skill at making a coherent point are highly variable. Some essays were very strong and cohesive ("What Happens When People Stop Being Polite," on The Real World series; "All I Know Is What I Read in the Papers," on the media and why it works; "This is Zodiac Speaking," on serial killers; "How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found, on born-again Christianity), and I definitely laughed out loud several times. Other essays ("Every Dog Must Have His Every Day..." on the genius of Billy Joel; "Ten Seconds to Love," comparing Pam Anderson to Marilyn Monroe; "33" on the Lakers/Celtics rivalry) were incoherent and rambling. Klosterman insists that everything is connected and really does set out to connect, well, everything. He sometimes succeeds and sometimes I was left thinking that this is a man who likes the sound of his own voice (or pen, as it were) and tries to make a lot of pseudo-intellectual (or maybe even true intellectual references) to make the reader believe that what he's saying actually makes sense. The collection improves significantly at the last three or four essays, and I felt that Klosterman dropped any pretension or self-satisfaction and just wrote, which worked a lot better.

I definitely feel that someone born in 1980 or earlier would enjoy this collection as a whole, but I would definitely recommend skimming or skipping the ones on topics in which the reader is less than interested.
One of the most important books on Gen X/Millennial entertainment. I don't think you can have an informed opinion about popular entertainment made after 1980 unless you've read this book. This particular copy I bought for a date who told me she had never read it. I may never see her again, but if she reads this book, I'm glad we met.
I have always hated reading but I could not put this book down. Klosterman's sense of humor is a bit more cynical than average, but that's exactly why I love it. He write in a way that's very easy to understand and feels like he's talking right at you. He talks about finding the meaning of the game Sims and how celebrities today are often famous for being famous. He covers a vast amount of pop culture topics in a very thought provoking way. My only complaint (though not the fault of the writer) is that some of the references are a little too old for me to really know, but that's pretty fair as I was only six years old when this book came out. Would recommend this book to anyone 25+ though.
Chuck Klosterman's an interesting essayist in that he actually seems to have engaged with the pop culture entities he writes about. This is a major accomplishment. Much of what I've read about pop culture is written by people who get basic facts wrong, and who don't even seem to like the pop culture they're getting paid to write about and don't pay close enough attention to the details. (Klosterman himself parodies this in a late chapter in which he attends an academic conference on rock music criticism).

Like most collections of essays, this book is pretty uneven. That's to be expected. Klosterman is at his best (and funniest) when writing about sports and music, the two topics he knows the most about and has the most professional experience with. The essay on a Guns N' Roses tribute band was sympathetic and spot-on, for example, and dovetails with many of my own experiences having seen and interacted with many tribute bands in the New York City. area. And speaking of New York, Billy Joel should really send Klosterman at least one fruit basket a year for the thoughtful analysis of "The Nylon Curtain" that appears early in this book because - unlike most Rolling Stone critics - Klosterman not only has listened to the album multiple times but gets what Billy Joel was trying to do better than anyone else. If you're a Billy Joel fan, you'll want to buy this book for that alone.

As for the worst moments? I think I have read enough anecdotes about Klosterman's undergraduate days in this book to last me a lifetime. He also does not really seem to understand science-fiction, which is not a serious flaw except that an entire chapter is devoted to a defense of the "Vanilla Sky" film that keeps veering into fairly superficial Philosophy for Dummies. There are no deep insights here, because this isn't really a manifesto.

Given how many of the topics that Klosterman obsesses over in these essays seem like artifacts from an alternate universe from a more modern perspective ("Vanilla Sky," "Saved by the Bell", some low-budget Rapture films, Pamela Anderson's sex tape, the Dixie Chicks), the book itself accidentally makes a brilliant point. The world that Klosterman wrote about at the turn of the 21st century is as different from 2017 as 1955 was to 1975. Ironically, some of what Klosterman includes here - namely internet pornography and reality television - seem just as topical today. And, if you look close enough, there is an undercurrent of the cultural divide between what we now call Red States and Blue States presented in a mostly nonconfrontational way.

If you're familiar with the pop culture that Klosterman uses as touchstones, and you're willing to read a book of essays which you may not always agree with, you're going to enjoy sections of this book. If you hate pop culture, you're not going to get anything out of this.